92. Tips For Addressing the Negative Stigma Around Tracking Macros With Your Circle

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Welcome to the Mind and My Wellness Podcast. Your podcast for all things macros, movement, mindset, and everything in between. I'm your host, Dani Merenberg, an ex yo yo dieting cardio junkie turned sustainable nutrition coach who's helped over 1000 women feel confident in their skin by learning.

How to eat for their goals without.

Sacrificing a life well lived. I created the Mind and My Wellness Podcast to give you simple, effective and manageable tips you can take away from each episode and implement in your daily life to look and feel like the best version of you. Each week, my guests and I teach you the secrets to mastering your health and owning your power. Nutrition, mindset, movement, and women's health are all topics you'll find here. Think of our time together as your productive little health break from the day. So grab your headphones, fill up your water, and let's dive into today's episode.

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Mind, My Wellness Podcast. This is your host, Dani, and today I am bringing to light a topic that comes up quite often and it actually just fell into my DMs a couple weeks ago and I thought, you know what? Yes, let's talk about this on the podcast. Because I know that she's not the only one dealing with this. I've dealt it with it in the past. A lot of the clients we work with inside my one on one coaching program, the Macro Accelerator. It's a common theme that comes up when tracking becomes a part of someone's life. So I got this DM in my Instagram inbox a couple weeks ago and it asked I was wondering if you could speak a bit on social stigma associated with tracking macros and cutting. I'm honestly so, so excited about the idea of fueling my body in the most optimum way. But as soon as my friends and family see me counting calories and weighing food, they get worried. The words quote disordered eating get thrown around a lot. Even though I've never been someone who struggles with disordered eating, I feel like I have to hide this part of my life that I'm super excited about. Thoughts and advice so I know that if you're listening, maybe you've come up against this too. And I want to really provide my viewpoint and maybe some inspiration on how you can communicate to those people that you really care about in your life who maybe be are not sure what you're doing when it comes to macro tracking or maybe are leaning more on the side of concerned versus excited for you. And if you're somebody like myself who is so excited about macros in a way that can really benefit them in a way that actually allows them to see, wow, I can eat this much food and accomplish my goal, Wow, I don't need to be in a severe calorie restriction to lose body fat. That is my goal. And I want to help you just add some clarity on how you can communicate that to your social environment. So I know it's it's very, very common to have this stigma when it comes to tracking macros. It can be super misunderstood because of course there are people who are going to take one extreme when it comes to macros. And I have a full podcast episode on whether or not macro tracking is right for you, because it is not right for everybody. It is a tool that can be so beneficial, but when taken to an extreme, is not beneficial at all. And this can be with macros, this can just be with calorie counting. This can be across the board. Any extremes are never super, super great. But when it comes to just really wanting to use this tool and this science to help inform the way you're eating, to look better, to feel better, to really optimize your overall health, my quick thought here is that macros are a tool to help you understand your nutrition, not obsess over it. So the whole goal of macros is really education and helping you have a better understanding of the foods that you're eating and how they influence your how you feel, how you move throughout the day, the energy that you have, your sleep at night, your hormone function and yes, the way that your body stores fat or releases fat and builds muscle, too. So my biggest recommendation for anybody who's struggling with social stigma around tracking is, number one, if you are excited about it, please do not let that dim your light, because it has truly changed my life and hundreds and hundreds of women's lives that I've worked with in a very, very positive way. And I like to remind everyone tracking does not need to be forever, nor for most people, is it forever. I haven't tracked well. I just started tracking again postpartum, but I hadn't tracked in two and a half years. And once you get the baseline knowledge of macros, you can apply that foundation to just your daily normal eating habits without tracking. It can be helpful in how you're thinking about your day. It can be helpful in how you're thinking about building out a specific meal. It can be helpful with going on vacation and fully enjoying that vacation, but in a very balanced way that feels super good for you. So macros are a tool and a knowledge point that can help you inform a way in which you decide to eat. And this way of eating is really designed to help how not only how you look, but how you feel, because it's so important that we're getting proper amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fats in our diet. So my biggest takeaway here for you is, again, if you're coming up against any social stigmas here when it comes to tracking and logging your food, use this as an opportunity to educate. And I'm going to give you some pieces of advice that you can take from this episode and share that with whoever you feel like maybe doesn't really quite understand what you're doing or fears that maybe what you're doing is an extreme. Maybe what you're doing is something that is going to be more restrictive than it is freeing. And you can really position this conversation in a way that expresses why you chose macros. For a lot of us, it is because it is freeing, not because it is restrictive. There's a huge difference between calorie counting and macro counting. And when we understand our macros, we are not trying to necessarily restrict and eat as few calories as possible, which often this misconception with tracking macros and calories comes from a very diet culture y restrictive mindset. And it's around, well, you only track your calories if you're trying to limit your calories. And we're actually doing the opposite here. At least with my coaching, we are trying to eat as many calories as possible for your goal. And that even includes fat loss. So we'll have many women come through our program who are like, okay, well I have a goal of fat loss. Why am I eating more more food? And that is because we want to work with your metabolism, not against it. So macros can help you do that. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be eating less, but rather oftentimes it means that you need to be eating more and fueling your body appropriately with these macros. So the first thing you can do is if somebody doesn't really know what macros even are and they just automatically think calorie restriction or calorie counting, educate them on what macros are. Say, no, no, no, I'm not calorie counting, I'm macro counting. And there's a huge difference here. I want to make sure that I am fueling my body appropriately. I want to make sure that I am getting enough protein, specifically because this is the one macronutrient that most women really struggle with. You can position it in this way where I want to understand the right amounts of macros that I need for my body to feel my best. I haven't been feeling my best or I know I can feel better. And I want to take an approach that's science backed that can help me not only feel my best, but eat more and really enjoy foods and not have this restrictive mindset around foods, because there are foods that can fit into your macros that maybe before you deemed off limits. So it's really more of this education around foods and educating those that you love who have this stigma around tracking with just how it can benefit you. So really a purpose of tracking is not for restriction. It really helps you understand what your body needs and fuels it effectively. And knowing that and communicating that may just be the piece that they need, but it also teaches you how to let go a little bit of control. And I think there's oftentimes this, this conflict here where we think of, well, you're controlling what you're eat eating because of macros. But oftentimes what happens is when you realize actually just how much you can eat to achieve your goals, you have more freedom in those macronutrients and in your calories to choose foods that maybe you wouldn't have chosen before. Maybe you were super, super restrictive with your carbohydrates and you realize, oh my gosh, I'm actually not eating enough carbohydrates. So now you're incorporating things like rice and breads and those carbs that you would not eat before. This is super, super common and I see this every single day inside our program. Use this as an opportunity to educate them on how you are using macro tracking to feel more empowered and have more information and build meals and think about your day from an informative standpoint rather than a restrictive standpoint. Again, we've talked, I talk ad nasium about just how much you can eat to achieve your goals. And it's not about living in a constant deficit, it's not about always dieting. And so that's another point that you can bring up is that you are really leaning into making sure that you are eating enough and that you're properly moving through these different things phases. If they really want more information, I have all these episodes that you can share with them on this podcast. But you're moving through these different phases so you're not constantly eating in a deficit. You're actually having a proven science backed roadmap to get you from A to Z and that A to Z doesn't have to be the smallest version of yourself. And maybe that's what they're concerned about. You can educate them on. No, this is why I'm doing this. Choose your why and share that. Share that with them. And if they love you, they want to know your why. They want to know the reasons behind it.

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So I want to leave you with a couple benefits. By a couple I mean like maybe like 10 benefits that macro tracking can Bring that you can pull any of these or all of them to share with those that again, maybe are concerned about your tracking. So number one is what we've talked about. It brings an increased awareness to your food and how you're eating and what you're eating, so that you have a bit more freedom, perhaps with what you're eating, but you're also making sure that you're fueling your body appropriately. And this comes down to also hormone regulation and gut health. Your macros are going to help with that. And if you don't know what your macros are, there's a good chance that you're not eating enough or you're eating too much of a specific macronutrient that could actually be causing more disruption inside your body, resistance inside your body, hormonal imbalances inside your body than if you were to understand your macros. And again, it doesn't have to be a long period of time, you can just understand your macros. Start by tracking, say, okay, this is just for a certain amount of time. I'm doing this because I really want to make sure that I'm fueling my body appropriately. I can't emphasize this enough because that is such a great way to phrase this to individuals and that I don't plan on tracking forever. I just want to understand how to appropriately increase my awareness around the foods I'm eating to best support me. Another is that it can help you avoid undereating. So again, in this diet culture that we live in, the stigma around tracking oftentimes comes from this calorie restrictive mindset of the 90s and the 2000s and the 80s when we wanted to just restrict calories to try to limit the amount of food that we were consuming, to be the smallest version of ourselves. But rather, you can educate this individual or these individuals on how tracking is actually helping you to avoid undereating. And it's helping you to fuel and optimize your metabolism and retain muscle. And if you didn't track, maybe you wouldn't know how to do that. You wouldn't have the tools in your tool belt or the actual data itself to know how to do that, how to build muscle, how to retain muscle, how to optimize your metabolism, how to regulate your hormones. It can also help to prevent an all or nothing mentality around food. When you understand that so many foods can fit into your diet in a very well balanced way, it can really eliminate this all or nothing mindset. And this is something that I really dealt with with my own Macro journey was a lot of these carbs like breads. I was like, okay, cool, you can eat bread. I can't. Absolutely not. My carb goal is so high today that I can enjoy pasta. I can enjoy my. I just had a Dave's everything bagel, which our protein tip has. Protein has fiber and healthy carbohydrates. So you can eat carbohydrates. And it really helps to alleviate this all or nothing mentality around food. It can help to increase your energy levels. And balancing your macros appropriately ensures that your body has this steady energy throughout the day because it's regulating your blood sugar levels. So making sure that you're eating the right amount of protein, carbs and fats can help to regulate that blood sugar level, which helps to alleviate cravings. To help steady your energy throughout the day and ultimately long term can really help with some other more chronic issues. It can also improve your gut health. Tracking macros can really make sure that you're eating enough fiber and this can ultimately help your gut. Same with protein and healthy fats. It can help to reduce bloating and really just overall support a healthy microbiome for you. We've talked about healthy hormone regulation, and this really comes into play when you're tracking macros because sometimes we don't know how many grams of fat we're eating or how many grams of protein we're eating. And these two macronutrients in and of themselves help with hormone regulation. So when we're eating them at the right amounts for your body, we can see optimal hormone regulation without having to jump through hoops to get there. It's really just that simple. Sometimes it's just making sure we're eating the proper macronutrients for your body also improved muscle maintenance and growth. We talked about this where if your goal is, hey, I really want to build some muscle, you know the benefits of muscle, communicate that to them. Communicate, hey, I'm not coming at this from a restrictive mindset. I am wanting to build muscle. I'm wanting to see body recomposition changes because I want to feel strong, I want to help with bone density. I want to, I want to age gracefully, and I want to have longevity. Because that's something, as we age, it becomes very, very challenging. And it's actually the number one cause of most injuries is because we don't have the strengths when we're older, which leads to falling and things like that. So it's really important that we're prioritizing our muscle development early on or whenever we're able to. And lastly, I think mindful eating. So again, tracking is not going to be something that you necessarily need to do forever or should do forever, but it's going to help provide you those tools in your tool belt to know how much protein you should be eating and how to get that protein in, how many grams of fat and carbohydrates you should be eating at different stages in your life, and how to get those in through the foods that you're choosing to eat every single day, which then help to inform you on how to be more mindful with your eating and choose foods that feel good for your body and help support your goals and build meals that are going to do the same. So I hope that by giving you all of these benefits through macros, these talking points that you can take and share with your loved ones who maybe don't quite understand can be really helpful. I hope that you can approach it from an educated standpoint where you are providing them with the education and maybe, just maybe, you will turn this switch on in their brain and this light bulb moment happens for them and they're like, wow, actually, I've never thought about it like that. Maybe that is something that I want to try. So in my own personal experience and talking with many women inside of our program, it's been this education piece. It's been this piece of reassuring them, hey, this isn't from a restrictive mindset. I'm really excited about this because I want to fuel my body appropriately. I want to get out of this dieting cycle. I want to feel my best. And sure, maybe I have some physical outcomes, there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm doing it from a place of wanting to understand what my body needs versus fighting against my metabolism and working against my body and trying to restrict. It's all about that education around that piece. So I hope that this episode is super helpful. And feel free to share this episode with anybody who maybe doesn't quite understand what macros are. I also have a ton of episodes. We have almost a hundred episodes here. All of them talk about. Not all of them. There are some guest episodes, but the ones I talk about are really focused on macros from a sustainable approach. And if you go back and listen to some of these episodes, you'll hear a lot of what I talk about isn't restriction. It's about how can I fuel my body appropriately to get the end result and from that place, share these episodes with them. Say, hey, I know you don't quite understand what I'm doing. Take a listen to this podcast episode because it really does a great job of outlining, like, what I feel and why I'm choosing to do this. And again, maybe it'll inspire them. So if you struggle with this, please, please, please let me know how you liked this episode. If you have any questions, if you want to brainstorm ways to communicate, send me a DM on Instagram @mindedmymacros and I'm happy to chat through this with you. It's a super important topic to me because I want you to be excited about macros. I want you to feel like, oh my gosh, my life is changing because of macros and it absolutely can. And being around supportive people and having those individuals in your corner to support you and encourage you is so important for your success. So if we can educate them, that is key. All right, until next week, keep minding your wellness.

Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. I love hearing from you, so shoot me a DM over on Instagram mindandmymacros to keep the convo going. If you've learned anything from this episode or any of my past episodes, I'd really love it if you took a few seconds to leave a quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I love hearing what you've learned or what you've taken away from any of these episodes. It means so much to me when you do that. And if you have any friends you know that need a little help kicking some old dieting mentalities to the curb and want some simple, effective and sustainable tips to feel their best, share a link to this episode with them. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time.